Part 38: Episode XXXV: In Which We Get the Dragon Ending

Episode XXXV: In Which We Get the Dragon Ending


Final Boss 3: Caim vs. Chaos Red Dragon

Verse VI: Under a Dark Sky


Sadly, a drunken Cavia development staff meeting has pitted the former partners against one another for reasons almost entirely unexplained. Let's get this rubbish over with.


"..."
"What the hell are you doing, Caim?!"
"I'm limbering up. It's been ages since I've had a fight where I could let out battle cries."
"RRAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!!"
"Oh man, I missed doing that!"
"Knock it off. This is serious! You should be acting seriously!"
"Dragon, you turned into some demonic version of yourself and then turned evil all within like two minutes. The only thing I could take less seriously than this would be like if I had to fight a 500 foot version of that Empire kid or something."


"Nah."
"Nah what?"
"I ain't buying it. After all that crap we had to do just to start the thing with me putting my hand in my chest and pulling out the spiritual avatar of my heart... I just ain't buying that ending the pact doesn't have anything happen. I don't feel any different. So I ain't buying it."
"When I stand over your broken body, the truth will be known to you."
"Heh. Like I've never heard that one before."


Despite the fact there are sixty-five weapons to collect in Drakengard, Heel Turn Red is the one and only ground based boss in the entire game. Indeed, Red here is the last proper final boss we'll be encountering. There is one more final boss in the last ending path. But...well... you'll see.

As you can see in the screenshot above, Caim is hiding behind a pillar. Caim will be doing that A LOT during the course of this battle. Apparently, Manah's temple was built with 100% fire proof building materials. And Red, being a dragon, attacks with only fire and flammable based objects, possibly (but not always) in ball form. So, to avoid being hit by said "fireballs" Caim must hide out behind pillars until there's an opening to attack.


Red's opening tactics are pretty pathetic. Her default fireballs are weak and very slow. Caim can literally just charge at her, dodging left or right whenever she readies a shot, and have no worry of being hit. The thing that drags this battle out is that Red has really high defense stats and takes forever to actually kill. The best thing to do in this battle is to bring the highest attack level weapon in Caim's arsenal. Red gets stun locked whenever Caim strikes her, so as long as it isn't a boat oar, he should have enough time to get a decent combo in.



The reason a high attack level weapon is necessary is due to this attack. After six hits, Red gets pissed and does an unblockable lunging attack for pretty decent damage. The attack is easily avoided by just dodging (Caim has invincible frames against physical strikes while rolling) but the highest combo he can score in one sequence is six hits.


In addition, after two or three combos, Red will fly to the other side of the arena. Annoyingly, she has a huge amount of time both beginning and ending this animation in which she's invincible.


"Look at what you humans have wrought. The only thing you produce is death and destruction. You destroy even your own seals for your own petty ends."
"Yeah and dragons have been doing a bang up charity job what with their fire breath and devouring kids."
"..."
"Alright, you got me there."



Red's second attack is a total bitch and a half. She basically floods the entire area in front of her with fire breath. The only safe spots are, as before, behind the assorted pillars.


The trouble with this attack is she spams it nearly non-stop. There is maybe a three second window between ending one round of fire breath and unleashing the next one. In said lull of immolation, there's really only a single second she's vulnerable. The other two seconds she winds up out of range to charge the attack


In case you were wondering, Red's head is her only vulnerable spot. The rest of her body doesn't even have a hitbox and Caim's weapon just sails through it as though nothing were there.


The best thing to have for this leg of the fight is a weapon with a projectile based critical attack. The fire breath attack can be canceled out by any hit, so that's the safest way to hit her. It's worth mentioning that Angelus is treated like a Red Dude soldier and magic attacks are a no-no. If your timing is good, it's possible to cheese the shit out of this section by getting a combo in until Angelus flies to the other side of the area. When she begins to take off, just haul ass to the other side of the temple and wait for her to land and just swing your sword wildly until she's no longer invincible. Repeating this tactic over and over and she'll never get a chance to attack until half her life bar is depleted.


After Red's health gets down to 50% she starts busting out the really bullshit attacks.



For instance, when she takes off she'll shit out weird little lasers that randomly travel around the room at 90 degree angles. They're really fucking annoying since there is no real rhyme or reason to them and the camera is shitty enough that you can't really keep tabs as to where all of them are hiding. There is, however, a way to cheese this section as well. The lasers have a grand design oversight:


Bunnyhopping! The lasers have really shitty collision detection and there is a split second lag between coming into contact with one and it exploding and damaging Caim. This is negated fairly efficiently by just making Caim bunny hop like a moron to return to attacking Angelus. It helps that she just sort of chills out waiting for Caim while the lasers are deployed.


The last attack Angelus has up her sleeve is by far the most assholish. A little targeting lock will appear in the field, sort of like she's targeting as though when you do aerial missions. The difference?


A bazillion giant, highly damaging fuck-off fireballs go ballistic circling the target marker. This attack is exceedingly hard to avoid. The only way is basically mashing the dodge button away from the marker as quickly as possible. Too close to the wall when it appears? You're fucked. Accidentally run into a pillar when rolling? You're fucked. Don't react fast enough? Fucked. This battle would be fairly easy were it not for this attack.

But, thankfully, that's all she has in her bag of tricks.


"I have seen it. I've seen the grand machinations of the gods. It is fucked!"
"How fucked are we talking?"
"Perhaps in another lifetime I can show you. But that life is not this one."
"I take it you're checking out, then?"
"Your arrogance will get the best of you someday, human."
"It ain't arrogance when you can back it up? Don't you know who I am?!"



"CAAAAAIIIIIMMM!!!"


Yeah, it wasn't actually nearly that dramatic. Sorry.

Verse VII: Light


Hey! Who cleaned up the Manah smear?! It went fantastic with the carpet. It really brought the room together.


"You weren't too shabby yourself, dragon..."
"Maybe things will be different next time..."
"Maybe so... Maybe so..."


And so Angelus dies. Apparently, dragon death can be monitored the same way you can a 1950's sci-fi robot. Whatever happened to robots with fashionable glowing red LED eyes?


<sigh> "Great day this has been... My dragon is dead. My sister is dead. Inuart's dead. I hope Verdelet is dead... And that little brat.. I didn't even get to kill her! She was the only one I wanted dead..."


"Why am I talking to myself...? Sheesh... On top of everything now I've got to remember to separate thinking and talking again. Tch...there I go again..."
<sigh> Maybe some violence will cheer me up...





No... It's just not the same...


And now my shoes are all wet... Terrific... That's just fucking terrific...



The melancholy of Caim of Caerleon is interrupted by...


...I was going to say the Dragon Apocalypse. But, I suppose that's a fitting enough name for it.


"Hehe... Hahaha... So that's the way it's gonna be, eh dragon?"


"You know what...? That sounds fine by me. Hold up, dragon. I'm going to go send a few more friends your way."



And so Caim rushes into oblivion, ready to stab Armageddon in the face. He couldn't be happier.


And so ends the crappiest plot path in all of Drakengard.


I always hate it when my friends get written off due to contrived reasons by the writers.

:



Alright, kids. Time for the meat and potatoes of Drakengard. Buckle up. This route is derailing the crazy train and sending it careening into the sea of madness. Stay tuned...

BONUS CONTENT:

Movie -
Drakengard: Ending C

Music -
Final Boss: Chaos Dragon
Staff Roll C